Rule of Three 4/25/11

[UngeheuerLich]

@ Aegeri: #1: The question was: Support besides powers that older classes can just take... so this excludes only mage builds, as they are exctly in this category...

@ Mirtek and Das Schwarze Auge: Players of D&D and Players of DSA are very faithful to their game of choice. D&D and Pathfinder together do as well as always here. The only problem and the main reason why 4e may be doing not so wel here is absolutely no german books...
I was seriously hoping they will try and find a new publisher when they made essentials.
Younger people just have problems entering a foreign language rulebook game. And if you started with DSA you usually don´t convert to D&D. (Notice: I don´t say any game is better. They are just very different)
Saying "D&D has problems because of DSA" is only half of the truth...

 

[WalterKovacs]

Is Threats to the Plane of Existence an actual thing? I haven't seen any other monster vault products other than Nentir Vale. Also I would argue if they can't make products that support all three tiers in monsters, then that is a core flaw with the product from the beginning.

He's just making a joke. Since Nentir Vale is supposed to be what is essentially a heroic tier setting, the threats to it would be mostly heroic tier; based on the assumption that at paragon you end up going to the Feywild/Shadowfell, and once you get to Epic you start dealing with the Astral Sea and the Nine Hells, etc ...

 

[Walking Dad]

Are there plans for future support for pre-Essentials classes beyond open paragon paths and indirect power choices? Yes. We are in the process of finalizing DDI content plans for the coming year. Based on community feedback, we are going to make sure that we roll out support for existing classes and find ways to shore up classes that are seen as under-supported.

Why did they make this DDI specific in the first sentence? I hope there will be also printed stuff...

 

[WalterKovacs]

Why did they make this DDI specific in the first sentence? I hope there will be also printed stuff...

Presumably, in print they want to make sure new content is accessible to all. So, it needs to 'require' the evergreen products (i.e. HotFK/HotFL and Rules Compendium). If you have access to DDi, you automatically have access to all the content, so a new build for the runepriest is something you can conceivably use, because you have access to the runepriest content. In book form, a new runepriest build would require someone have a copy of PHB3 available, which some stores may no longer stock, and as a non-evergreen product, wouldn't be getting it back in.

So it's quite possible that, going forward, player book content will mostly be new classes, new builds of existing essential classes, or feat/PP/epic destiny content that is basically Essentials neutral. So the kinds of things that were already confirmed, open PPs and reverse compatible powers. The market for the books is aimed at requiring as few books as possible, and they'll presumably focus on the books that are supposed to always be in print and available. Online, they don't need that, since the original classes being supported are also online.

It may not be what some people want, but I would guess that may be their plan going forward. Books will be mostly about producing new stuff (either new builds or new classes) and less about supporting older stuff, that is going to be the job of Dragon.

 

[Zaran]

Is Threats to the Plane of Existence an actual thing? I haven't seen any other monster vault products other than Nentir Vale. Also I would argue if they can't make products that support all three tiers in monsters, then that is a core flaw with the product from the beginning.

No, It's not. That last article about building an Epic Monster out of an existing makes me think that alot of the epic support we will get will be of the sort of teaching us to do it ourselves. I'm sure they have the idea that most GMs who want to do Epic level stuff are skilled enough to do it themselves and the rest are doing Heroic tier stuff. The Epic Level Adventure arc sounds cool as long as each article is more than two encounters.

 

[wayne62682]

I think what they said is fine. The fighter is not under-supported. You are basically wanting them to swear to us that they aren't stupid. If they were I don't think they would realize it.

The thing is... and I don't mean to offend anyone, WotC has shown in the past few years they really have little to no clue what they're doing, so many of us don't have any reason to trust what they say, ever. Just before 4E they couldn't get their IRC chat working properly, and rather than fix it they just scrapped the whole thing for like 2 years. They redid the forums when 4E came out with Gleemax, and that turned into garbage after a month or two and was eventually killed off. Half the promises from the 4E launch were either never delivered at all (meaning they were vaporware and marketing lies) or were delivered half-assed and barely working.

Honestly, I like the company but for such a leading company in the industry it's absolutely horrible to do half the things they do. Their new chat room, for instance, is total garbage and barely anyone uses it; a far cry from the olden days I remember of having 30+ people in the chat and pickup games going on and contests and everything. Even their books haven't improved - there's still errata and outright wrong rules and shoddy editing the second the book hits the shelves; that's downright inexcusable IMO for a large company. I would expect some mom-and-pop nobody retailer to have a crappy website with crappy forums and lousy support and terrible editing, not a multi-million (billion? I don't think they're that big) dollar company that is claiming to be the #1 RPG publisher in the world.

 

[Jhaelen]

The only problem and the main reason why 4e may be doing not so wel here is absolutely no german books...
I was seriously hoping they will try and find a new publisher when they made essentials.

This!
It's absolutely unfathomable for me any my group of players that WotC doesn't care about losing the German market.

DSA and D&D really focus on different things. I'm happy to play both but I probably couldn't stand playing one of them exclusively.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually I can´t be angry about the cluelessness...

How can they hace a clue, when they try to communicate with the fans and the fans don´t have a clue what they want...

- online tools: -> they are turning D&D into a computer game
- all classes progress in a systematic pattern: -> all classes are the same

solution:
- 3d tools cancelled
- class strukture opened

Fans: they are destroying the game.

My conclusion: it was good and nice that developers tried to listen... but the fan base has so many different preferences, they should just do their thing. It is the only chance for them not to look clueless. But even if they do, some people will complain.

It is the feeling of some people, that everything needs to fit their tastes, that makes them look clueless. When you think about it in a different way:

essentials for more inexperenced players, but totally compatible. Heroes of shadow for vampire fans. Then everything looks like a plan: diversity.

Even the online builder makes sense: piracy and "subscribe 1 Month and download all recommendations". For 2 years, you got everything you needed for virtually free. (System reference document of 3.5 was a different matter... it was only the basic system.)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

This!
It's absolutely unfathomable for me any my group of players that WotC doesn't care about losing the German market.

DSA and D&D really focus on different things. I'm happy to play both but I probably couldn't stand playing one of them exclusively.

The german market was not as small as they may think. What they need is a competent translator.
Essentials would have been the perfect opportunity to reenter the market. But to really make it work, they need a good localization of the website.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

The german market was not as small as they may think. What they need is a competent translator.
Essentials would have been the perfect opportunity to reenter the market. But to really make it work, they need a good localization of the website.

And they'd also need to give permission to translate DDI content into German. But that's a pipe dream. They couldn't find a publisher after the Feder & Schwert fiasco, and I'm convinced they've given up on D&D in Germany, at least for this edition's lifespan.

Back to topic:
I'm hoping that next year will be a good year for 4e. Don't mess this up, Mearls.